Monique Steele, RNZ
A lack of rain on the North Island’s East Coast may be good for the area’s fruit and vegetable growers - but the dry is starting to bite for pastoral farmers.
The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s (Niwa) latest hotspot report showed Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, as well as Coromandel Peninsula, had the driest soils in the North Island in the past week, when compared to normal for this time of year.
Hawke’s Bay Fruitgrowers’ Association president Brydon Nisbet said the warm, sunny weather recently was great for crews out harvesting this season’s feijoas and apples crops.
Nisbet said the heavy rain that lashed parts of the country last week went right over them, bringing less than five millimetres of rainfall for most across the region.